August 15, 2008

I was reading in my bedroom easy chair this morning when I heard the rain start up again. (We were awakened during the night by a huge clap of thunder and a bit of a storm, leading us to unplug a few things, including this computer.)

I was reminded, as I often am, of something from a book … At first I thought it was C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but then I realized it was Elizabeth Enright’s The Saturdays. (Both stories begin with children stuck in a house because of the weather.)

“‘But it isn’t enough just to have it plain rain,’ continued Rush …. ‘Oh no. Today it has to go and be a sousing sopping pouring wet kind of rain that you can’t do anything about …’

“He was quite right. It was a very wet rain. … All the city sounds that could be heard above the rain itself were wet sounds; the long whish of passing automobiles, damp clopping of horses’ hoofs, and the many voices, deep, or high, or husky, that came hooting and whistling out of the murky rivers at either side of the city.”

What’s outside my house isn’t nearly “a sousing sopping pouring wet kind of rain that you can’t do anything about.” But after days and days of upper 90s and low 100s on the thermometer, if that kind of rain chose to park above my city, I wouldn’t complain a bit.